Most believers intellectually understand that God loves them. Very few however, know His love experientially. That knowing is what changed my life and it can change yours too.
why do you serve God do you serve God to
get God to love you or do you serve God
because you’ve already had God look
there’s a big difference between those
two we’re going to talk about that today
on our program and this will help you so
stay tuned for the gospel truth
welcome to gospel truth with Andrew
Wommack a teaching ministry emphasizing
God’s unconditional love and grace and
now here’s Andrew welcome to our
Tuesday’s broadcast of the gospel truth
today I’m continuing a series that I
just started yesterday and we’re talking
about God’s kind of love specifically
God’s kind of love to you are for you
and the point that I was making on my
program yesterday is that a lot of
people just don’t understand how
important it is to understand God’s love
they let me phrase it this way most
people see God’s love as a goal that
they’re headed towards and they think
that by doing good things and studying
the word and keeping the commandments
and doing this and this and this that
they somehow another earn God’s love so
they see gold God’s love as a goal that
they’re headed towards that’s what they
are desiring and praying for is for God
to pour out their love his love in their
life and yet I believe it’s exactly
opposite that I believe that you need a
revelation of how much God loves you
first and then everything else in the
Christian life comes out of
understanding how much God loves you now
somebody may think that that’s a minor
difference but it’s a major difference I
mean a huge difference huge difference I
can’t I don’t have the words to convey
the difference between serving God
because you have his love versus serving
God trying to earn his love it’s a
totally different thing and the results
that you get are totally different too I
mean when you are trying to do things to
obtain God’s love they
and according to scripture and I could
go into much more detail on this but
I’ll just say these things and praise
God I hope that the Lord will explain
this to you because some of you may
choke on this but when you are trying to
do things to earn God’s love that’s what
the Pharisees were doing that actually
is self-righteousness you aren’t coming
to God through Christ and receiving his
love as a free gift but you’re thinking
that you have to do things to earn it
and the only people that Jesus ever
rebuked were self-righteous religious
people who were doing things to earn the
love of God if you would have asked them
you know what are you doing all of these
things for I mean they paid tithes of
mint and anise and cumin all the way
down to the spices in their gardens they
prayed three times a day they sounded
trumpets before then they wore these
things called phylacteries which was a
band around their head that had
scripture hanging down in a little
packet and they did that because the
scripture says you’re supposed to keep
the word before your eyes all of the
time and that was a way to show how they
were focused on the Word of God they had
little fringes around their garment that
were supposed to be holiness to the Lord
I mean their whole life was built around
doing all of these things but they were
doing then trying to obtain God’s love
they linked God’s love to their own
performance and those are the people
that God rebuked that but on the other
hand he took publicans who were people
who were tax collectors they were
collaborating with the Roman government
and oppressing their own people they
were traitors they were hated of people
he loved publicans he even made a
publican a tax collector Matthew one of
his twelve disciples he showed mercy
towards harlots prostitutes people that
were living ungodly he never rebuked any
of those kind of people the only people
Jesus ever got angry at and rebuked were
the people that were living a relatively
holy life but they were what they were
believing that God owed them his love
because they had lived so holy
and I’ll tell you what there are people
that are trapped in that exact same
mindset today there are multitudes of
people watching this program all across
Europe and Africa India the United
States Asia Australia any place on the
earth people are watching this program
and I guarantee you this is a condition
that affects the vast majority of people
they have fallen into doing things
trying to earn God’s love but the
scripture says it’s just the opposite it
says over in 1st John chapter 4 that we
love Him because He first loved us you
don’t love God and then God loves you in
return no you love him because he first
loved you and if you don’t understand
this and if you don’t receive God’s kind
of love as a free gift and if you don’t
let God’s unconditional agape type of
love transform your heart and then serve
God as a response to love but instead
you are serving God trying to get God to
love you that’s the difference between
religion and true Christianity that’s
the difference between serving God made
being hard and difficult and you’re
depressed and you’re discouraged and
you’re a person who is just walking in
the joy and in the peace of God I tell
you we love God because God first loved
us and anytime you get the cart in front
of the horse anytime you get these
things in a wrong order and you get to
trying to do something to obtain God’s
love instead of serving God as a results
of a byproduct of God’s love well then
that takes all of the joy and all of the
victory out of Christianity and if it’s
to an extreme well then it makes you
just a religious person who may be doing
good things but you are right on your
way to hell and it is not true
Christianity and those are some strong
statements but I’m saying all of this
just trying to emphasize how important
receiving a revelation of God’s love is
yesterday on our program
I used Ephesians chapter 3 and in verse
19 he prayed that you would experience
the love of God which passes just mere
intellectual knowledge and the last part
of that verse says that when you
experience God’s love then you are
filled with all of the fullness of God
you could say it this way if you aren’t
filled with God if you aren’t filled
with all of the benefits if you aren’t
filled with the fullness of God then
there is a lack of understanding of
God’s love for you and my personal
testimony bears this out completely
born-again when I was eight that I was
relatively a nominal Christian I believe
if I would have died I would have gone
to heaven but went 10 years later when I
was 18 I experienced God’s love for me
in a way that just transformed my life
you know if you were looking at my life
only from the external and looking at
the actions and the way that I was
manifesting God through my life you
wouldn’t have really noticed a huge
change when I was 8 years old the change
took place when I was 18 and that’s when
I received the love of God now I
understood that I was a sinner and that
I needed to make Jesus my Lord and I did
that when I was a young boy but you know
what it was when I experienced this love
of God that my life took off and
brothers and sisters I don’t know how to
get this across any better than what I’m
doing but I’m saying that I know that
I’m speaking to people who you’ve
acknowledged the fact that God sent
Jesus to forgive your sins and you have
humbled yourself and receive Jesus as
your Savior and you’ve gotten born again
and you believe that God loves you to a
degree but I know that there are many of
you multitudes of you that are exactly
the way I was you’re saved and stuck you
don’t have any joy you don’t have any
peace you know I’ve often said it this
way if I would have been arrested for
being a Christian there wouldn’t have
been enough evidence to convict me I was
going through the motions and I was now
living in some of the sin that other
people did but I tell you what there
wasn’t this life of God flowing through
me that there is now
after I’ve received the revelation of
God’s love and I know that there are
many of you who have accepted Jesus as
your Savior and made a commitment to a
degree but you don’t have the power of
God working in you you don’t hear God’s
voice you don’t have direction for your
life your life is aimless and there’s
just so many people that are what I call
saved and stuck and I’m telling you the
thing that’ll unstick you the thing that
will get your life moving in the right
direction is a revelation of how much
God loves you and that’s what I’m trying
to get across if you could ever
experience God’s love and I mean not
just intellectually but experience it
feel and experience God’s love it would
just transform you you would serve God
more accidentally than you’ve ever
served him on purpose before and I’m
telling you the reason I’m saying all of
these things is because when I start
talking about the love of God people
think oh I know that God loves me and
yet look at the fruit in your life is
your fruit the fullness of God are you
having victory when you are really
walking in the love of God you will
experience a level of victory joy peace
happiness unlearning faith everything
else in the Christian life works out of
this one principle of love if you are
struggling over here in some area if you
trace that back to its root it’s because
there is a lack of understanding God’s
kind of love for you and so before I can
really get all of these truths to you
and explain these things first of all
you’ve just got to put an importance on
this you’ve got to recognize how
important it is to have an experiential
knowledge of God’s love for you if you
don’t have that that needs to be the
focus of your life in Drew’s five-part
teaching titled God’s kind of love to
you is available on CD for a gift of
sixteen pounds or more or you can
receive the album as part of the God’s
kind of love 5 pack for a gift of 60
pound
or more the 5-pack includes God’s kind
of love to you God’s kind of love
through you and God’s kind of love the
cure for what ails you
the companion teachings the true nature
of God and spirit soul and body are
included and you can choose them on book
or CD request God’s kind of love 5 pack
when you write call or go to our website
be sure to specify the companion
teachings in book or CD we hope to hear
from you today and now
gospel truth continues so I’ve been
trying to emphasize how important it is
to have an experience of working
knowledge of God’s kind of love for you
and I’ve already used a number of
scriptures on that let me turn it over
to something that Jesus said this is in
Matthew chapter 22 and there was a
lawyer that means not a civil lawyer the
way we think of it today but this was a
religious lawyer a person who made his
living taking every little jot and
tiddle every detail of the law and
imposing that on people and making them
do all of these things right and they
came up with tens of thousands of
Commandments not just the Ten
Commandments but they took every
commandment in the Bible about
everything that you should do and these
are people that just made their living
out of telling people all of the things
that they had to do to be right with God
so one of these lawyers came to Jesus
and here’s what he said unto him in in
verse 35 this is Matthew 22 35 it says
in one of them which was a lawyer asked
him a question tempting him and saying
the phrase that it says tempting him
this shows you that he wasn’t sincere
what he was trying to do was to catch
Jesus he wanted to see if Jesus had the
same understanding of the word that he
did and if Jesus didn’t answer this
question exactly the way he would have
then he would have criticized Jesus and
have used this as an opportunity to turn
people away from following Jesus so he
asked this question tempting him and
saying master which is the
great commandment in the law now this is
important because again there were so
many instructions in the Old Testament
about all the things that you should do
basically he’s saying how do you boil
this all down just boil it down to one
thing what is the one thing that we
really need to put the emphasis on and
here’s Jesus answer in verse 37 jesus
said on him thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart and with all thy
soul and with all thy mind this is the
first and Great Commandment now this is
interesting because you know what this
isn’t one of the commandments that was
over in Exodus chapter 20 what we call
the Ten Commandments actually this is a
commandment taken from Deuteronomy
chapter 6 also Leviticus chapter 19 over
there it says that you shall not hate
your brother in your heart but you shall
in any wise rebuke him and not suffer
sin to come upon him you have to love
your brother as yourself there’s a
number of scriptures that he was
combining but he basically boiled
everything down to say that the heart of
all of the Old Testament laws are loving
God with all your heart with all your
soul with all your mind this is the
first and Great Commandment and then he
went beyond this man’s question and even
answered it gave him more explanation
and he says in the next verse the second
is like unto it thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself on these two
Commandments hang all the law and the
prophets man that is a powerful powerful
statement and you know in the New
Testament this is developed on much much
more in John chapter 13 Jesus says a new
commandment I give unto you that you
love one another by this shall all men
know that you’re my disciples that you
have love one for another Jesus put down
that his commandment was just one thing
and that’s to love one another then over
in James chapter 2 it talks about the
royal law and the word royal here is
talking about you know in the sense that
it is a kingly law or it is I think that
that’s just a way of saying that this is
the most important
of all of the laws the royal law is to
love your neighbor as yourself and so in
the New Covenant this is developed on a
lot more and Jesus is basically saying
that love has to be the focal point of
everything you know if you were to just
think about this if you love God first
and foremost and I could spend weeks
developing this matter of fact that’s
exactly what I’m going to do as we talk
about this series about talking about
the love of God but today I’m just going
to make a point here that if you love
God more than you loved yourself if God
was first if you weren’t God ahead of
him if you just got this one point that
there’s only one God and you are not him
and so if you bowed the knee and humbled
yourself and submitted and committed
yourself to God more than you loved
yourself did you know that that would
stop most problems in your life most of
us have got understanding from the word
that we’re supposed to do certain things
but you know the bottom line is we
actually honor ourself and think our
opinion is better than God and so we
know that God said not to go out and
commit adultery but all I feel so
passionately and I think it would just
be awesome I’m tired of this when I’m
going to go get this one and you know
what it says that we aren’t supposed to
lust in our heart but man that’s so
there’s so many opportunities to lust
today there are many of you that just go
ahead and do what you want to do
ignoring God if you love God if you
valued him in his opinion more than you
valued your own opinion did you know it
would stop all of those kind of things
we would just bow the knee and we would
begin to serve God and then if you loved
other people more than you loved
yourself these two things if you just
loved God more than you loved yourself
valued him more than you value yourself
and if you loved and valued other people
more than you value yourself did you
know that it would be impossible to sin
and huddle some of you thinking oh no I
still could see man I sin all the time
No if you loved God more than you loved
yourself and loved other people more
than you loved yourself I guarantee it
would stop all sin in your life when you
lie did you know what you’re basically
doing you’re manipulating other people
you’re giving them false information
you’re seeing something so that you can
manipulate and control and it means that
you are so concerned about yourself you
will lie you will do whatever you will
make a fool of another person you will
give them false information and have
that act on that because it’s going to
be to your advantage
it basically comes down to that you
don’t love that person if you really
love the person you’d never lie to them
never lie to them you would tell the
truth if you really loved other people
you’d never steal from a person a person
that goes and steals something from
another person is a person that says you
know what it’s all about me I don’t care
about you I don’t care that I’m taking
your car or something that you need I
need it I want it it’s all about me self
self self you just take from other
people if somebody was to come and steal
your thing how would you feel well you
would feel brokenhearted and mad and
angry why because you love yourself well
when you steal from somebody else you’re
doing the exact same thing if you go out
and commit adultery all you’re doing is
thinking about yourself gratifying
yourself the physical or the emotional
response that you get from it you aren’t
thinking about that you are destroying a
life if you go out and have a
relationship with a prostitute you are
contributing to destroying a person’s
life I don’t think that there’s a single
person watching this program that thinks
that being a prostitute is a is a high
road in the best way to go you recognize
the condemnation the guilt the open the
opening to sexually transmitted disease
the way that a person is just totally
destroyed in their life when a person
goes out and has sexual relationship
with somebody other than their mate I
guarantee you you don’t give a rip about
anybody but yourself all you are is you
are just driven by hormones you’re out
to satisfy lust a desire you don’t love
the other person if you really love the
other person and if you really love God
more than you love yourself you would
never do stuff like that
to prove it just think of this just kind
of in your mind imagine going in and
having a relationship with the
prostitute and right before you jump in
bed with her say let’s pray and let’s
just ask God that this would glorify him
and tell God how much we love him you
know I’ve never done that but I can just
imagine that that would probably ruin
the entire mood it would probably
destroy the whole thing especially if
you were a Christian and if you have any
commitment to the Lord at all if you
were to pray before you went out and
committed your act of adultery your act
of lust I guarantee you to just stop it
when a person goes out and does stuff
like that you aren’t thinking about how
much God loves you and how much you love
God and all the things he’s done for you
you’re only thinking about yourself you
aren’t thinking about the other person
every sin that a person commits is
basically violating these two
Commandments that the Lord gave of not
loving God with all your heart all your
soul and all your body and not loving
other people more than you love yourself
you’re violating one of those two things
you can boil it down to that you don’t
have to remember the scriptures about
the Sabbath and about not putting other
gods before him and about honoring your
father and mother and about keeping the
Sabbath day and not lying and not
committing adultery and not coveting and
all of the commandments that we’re given
you don’t have to remember all of those
just love God more than you love
yourself love other people more than you
love yourself and you know what you
would wind up living the holiest life
that any person is ever seen it really
does all all boil down to love love is
the greatest of all of the things that
God has given us and so if you are
struggling in your Christian life you
you can’t put all of these little pieces
together you can’t just focus on the
thousands of things that religion has
told us to do you know all you got to
really do is just love God
see the love of God first of all you
can’t give away what you don’t have
so receive God’s love for yourself and
start loving God and then you will love
other people and nobody will be able to
condemn you or criticize you if you
start doing those two things I’m telling
you this is not the focus of a lot of
people there are so many people that are
over here dealing with all of these
fringe issues that in themself may be
right and they may be important in their
proper place but we put the emphasis on
all of these other things when really it
all boils down to your personal love
relationship with the Lord it all comes
down to relationship do you understand
how much God loves you and if you don’t
well then I guarantee you you’re going
to have trouble in your Christian life
so this is what we’re beginning to deal
with and I think this is going to make a
huge difference in your life I’d like to
encourage you to listen as our announcer
gives you some information we’re
offering a bunch of different products
all about the love of God it’ll be a
blessing to you and then join me again
tomorrow as we continue the gospel truth
Andrews five-part teaching titled God’s
kind of love to you is available on CD
for a gift of 16 pounds or more or you
can receive the album as part of the
God’s kind of love 5 pack for a gift of
60 pounds or more the 5 pack includes
God’s kind of love to you God’s kind of
love through you and God’s kind of love
the cure for what ails you the companion
teachings the true nature of God and
spirit soul and body are included and
you can choose them on book or CD
request God’s kind of love 5 pack when
you write call or go to our website be
sure to specify the companion teachings
in book or CD the first individual
teaching in God’s kind of love to you is
available on CD for a donation of 3
pounds or more but for those unable to
send a gift Andrew and his partners will
provide this first teaching free of
charge our dress is aw Emmy that’s
Andrew Wommack ministries of Europe
p.o box for 392 Walsall WS 1:9 a our
England our telephone number is zero one
nine two two four seven three three
hundred or you can go to our website at
any hour you can use credit card to make
donations and receive ministry products
24 hours a day at WWWE net thank you for
your gift today
you know if you are receiving this
teaching about the love of God and if
you recognize that this is what
everybody needs this is what turns
people’s lives around is understanding
how much God loves them
then I’d like to ask you to help me to
spread this good news you know we are
now reaching about 60% or more of the
United States population with the gospel
truth but I’d like to reach 100% and
then there’s a saturation where we reach
them on more than one channel per day
and give multiple opportunities there’s
just a lot that we need to do to expand
in to reach out and so if you would like
to be a part of this we have a number on
your screen and please call or write
today and become a partner with us we
also would like to point out andrew’s
upcoming speaking schedule all meetings
are open to the public and no
registration is required for these
events visit our website or call our
helpline for more information mark your
calendar and come meet Andrew at one of
these events we recently aired a series
of programs documenting Andrews February
visit to Uganda a year before he arrived
CBC graduate Leland shores had set up a
network of 16 discipleship training
centers for 800 local pastors who in
turn taught the same lessons to sixty
four thousand parishioners each week
Andrew visited some of these outposts
and was deeply moved to see the power of
the word changing so many lives in the
process he discovered that Leland
traveled long hours over dangerous roads
in a small Suzuki to accomplish this
powerful outreach
when the programs aired around the world
many viewers called to see what they
could do to help we’re happy to report
that as a result Lila now has been given
the funds to purchase a Land Cruiser
made for the difficult roads of Africa
this vehicle will help him continue to
grow this ministry in the days ahead and
we look forward to more good reports to
come in his excitement he sent us this
picture of the car
and he sends his heartfelt thanks to you
for your love and generosity be sure to
tune in tomorrow for more gospel truth
if you are flowing in the gifts of the
Holy Spirit and yet if you aren’t doing
it motivated by God’s kind of love then
all you are is just making noise it’s
not going to profit you it’s not going
to profit anybody else love has to be
this common thread of this bond of
perfectness that holds everything
together there’s a lot of Christians
today who are going to church and they
pay their ties and they read their Bible
and they live a certain standard of
holiness but they do it all through
gritted teeth they aren’t doing it
motivated by love they’re doing it
trying to earn and appease God and gain
his love and I tell you it just voids
everything the Christian life is
impossible to live it’s beyond human
ability and unless you experience God’s
love
I mean experience it not just hear
somebody else talk about it but unless
you experience it you aren’t going to be
able to turn the other cheek when
somebody slaps you on one cheek you
won’t be able to turn the other one if
you haven’t received a supernatural love
that allows you to live and go beyond
your own natural ability love that’s
tomorrow on gospel truth with Andrew
Wommack